A New Life

In 1998, young French director Philippe Grandrieux made his feature debut Sombre, a disturbing film in which the audience got to follow a serial killer's nightmarish mental trials when confronted with true love. With A New Life, Grandrieux once again uses his exceptional way of imagery to tell the story of a young American man, Seymour, adrift somewhere in Eastern Europe. In Sofia, he sees a girl, a prostitute, whom he starts to pursue, getting more obsessed with every move they make together into the underworlds of sexuality. Narrative is not what Grandrieux is interested in, though. The need for expression is in the pure, naked use of the image and the physical relation to it. Like in Sombre, the dialogue is almost non-existent - there are maybe some ten lines throughout the whole film. Grandrieux' own fascination with the silent film era has definitely put its marks on his work, but the lack of dialogue serves another purpose. It urges the audience itself to enter the rather claustrophobic, primal and violent ambience of the film. The gritty cinematography, the use/non-use of colours, the close-ups resembling the paintings of for example Francis Bacon - all components contribute to Grandrieux' very own vision of the human mind. BETTINA EDLUND

Orig. titel
La vie promise: Medverkande
Zach Nighton, Anna Mouglalis; Marc Barbe, Zsolt Nagy: Producent
Catherine Jaques: Manus
Philippe Grandieux: Foto
Stephane Fontaine: Musik
Les Etant Donnes: Talat språk
French